Touristically speaking, South America´s sixth largest country should be a star, thanks to its considerable offerings in ecotourism, adventure, beaches, and culture. Instead, it ranks below not just neighbors like Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and especially Brazil, but even the likes of Paraguay. But even before the fateful rise of Hugo Chávez and his “Bolivarian”/Chavista movement to power in 1999, tourism to Venezuela was almost an afterthough – fairly marginal in an economy which relied overwhelm
